By Mohamed Massaquoi
The United Council of Imams in the Pujehun district, has suspended their district chief imam, Alhaji Sulaiman Rogers on allegations of “misappropriation of funds and lack of transparency”.
Chiefdom Chief Imam of Kpanga Karbondeh, who doubles as the district public relations officer, Alhaji Gasimu Sheriff told Politico that the move was as a result of a unanimous decision.
“This is a unanimous agreement with 11 of the 12 Chiefdom Imams backing the decision" Sheriff said, adding that the suspension "is due to the fact that he has no respect for us and does not listen to our advice as district executive members".
Sheriff accused Rogers of "poor financial management" adding that he "unilaterally suspended our deputy district chief imam”.
He insisted that they were not going to reverse their decision, and that they had no regret for doing so. He claimed that Imam Rogers “caused his troubles when he publicly rejected our appeal to follow the procedure to elect imams according to the Holy Quran on the day we went to elect the chiefdom chief imam of Kpaka chiefdom”.
The PRO also said that they had even appointed Sheik Abdul Majid Kawa as their Acting district chief imam.
“It will be difficult for us to reverse our appointment of the acting district chief imam. In fact we are waiting to hear from our regional executive body to make him the substantive,” he said.
Chiefdom chief Imam of Kpanga Krim, Alhaji Vandi Sama, also expressed dissatisfaction over the financial management system of the suspended district chief imam. Similar sentiments were expressed by other executive members of the united council of Imams in Pujehun.
Speaking to Politico, the suspended imam denied the allegations against him. “I am still the substantive, democratically-elected district chief imam. I say so because they have to go through the right procedure to get another Imam elected” Alhaji Rogers said.
He added that it was only the regional executive of their council that had the mandate to suspend any district chief Imam from their position. He said he had personally been paying their contributions to attend national conferences although on loan. “Every year I pay Le 1.5 million,” he claimed.
(C) Politico 05/08/14
